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I want to retire early. Where should I invest?

I want to retire at age 55. I contribute to several retirement savings plans but worry I'll be penalized for withdrawing my savings early. I want to invest additional money somewhere else. Where should I invest? --Dave

Many of us dream of retiring long before our 65th birthday and having more time to enjoy life without the hindrance of a regular 9-5. But for some people, it can seem like an impossible goal.

Saving enough to retire early is hard enough, but many retirement accounts will punish you for withdrawing your savings too soon.

Here are three steps to becoming financially independent so that you can quit the rat race long before the Social Security checks start to arrive.

Step 1: Crunch the numbers

The first step is to make sure you'll actually have enough money to retire early.

"Many people greatly underestimate how much money they will need to last for a 35-45 year retirement," says Jon Ulin, a certified financial planner at Ulin & Co. Wealth Management.

If you're following the standard retirement route, you should aim to save six times your annual income by age 50 and ten times your income by age 60. When you retire at age 65, you should have about 13-15 times your income stashed away, says Ulin.

In other words, someone earning $100,000 a year would need to save between $1.3 and $1.5 million by age 65.

But in order to retire by age 55, you may need to save 33 times your annual salary. That means someone earning $100,000 would need to save around $3.3 million, says Ulin.

Step 3: Invest your extra savings

These after-tax accounts allow you to buy and sell stocks, bonds, currencies and more. Unlike many retirement accounts, they also allow you to invest as much money as you want and withdraw money at any time.

While that money can only be used for qualified health care expenses in order to avoid penalty, we all have more substantial health care costs as we age. And those costs can really start to add up in your golden years.